Incredibly Real Sounding Drum Tracks -- Zero Angry Neighbors

The most common element in popular music is also the most complicated: the drum kit. Incorporating real drums into your projects requires no less than a dedicated recording studio with a tuned room and a tuned drum set. Or, it requires a single piece of software. Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 saves working producers and composers untold thousands of dollars in recording equipment and set-up time, yet delivers stunningly realistic acoustic drum sounds for use in just about any genre. You get 25GB of professionally recorded drum tones, paired with a sophisticated mixer interface for sample-based drum production software that's as simple or as deep as you want it to be.

Drum Sounds Straight from the Hit Factory

The most important step in creating a sample instrument is the planning phase. The planners for Superior Drummer were Pat Thrall, Neil Dorfsman and Nir Z, three producers with almost 100 years combined experience in the industry working with artists like Meat Loaf, Celine Dion, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, Beyonce, Bjork, and more. These pros know what radio-ready drums sound like, but more importantly they know what makes for the most flexible core tracks. Recorded at three legendary New York City studios, the drums samples in Superior Drummer 2.0 are platinum-quality and eminently useable in any project. It's the drum library designed by producers, for producers.

Intuitive Graphical Interface, Multiple Kit Elements

Mix and match multiple drum kit elements to create a kit that fits each distinct project. Superior Drummer 2.0 offers three different kicks, seven snares, three hi-hat pairs, four rides, two different tom combinations, four different crash cymbal setups, six special effects cymbals and of course, cowbell. Does a track call for a softer drum sound? Superior Drummer 2.0 has sample sets recorded with rods and brushes to take things down a notch. For hard rock and metal, there's the option of switching to a plastic beater on the kick drum for tighter, more aggressive punch. The intuitive, graphical interface makes it easy to assemble these elements in any way you want. Load up kit presets or customize your own kit, going as deep as tuning the pitch of each drum and even the attack and decay envelope. All the big producers have developed their own "signature sound" for their drum tracks, and now you can as well.

Integrated Mixer for Advanced Sound Sculpting

For even deeper sculpting of your drum sound, Superior Drummer features a built-in, fully functional mixer for use either as a plug-in or for standalone operation. The mix interface lets you dictate details like microphone assignments on each drum kit element and the amount of bleed from one drum's mic to the others. Each channel features a five-band EQ and panning and level controls, and there's a full suite of insert effects like compressors, gates, filters, and transient processing for getting exactly the kind of drum tones and performance you want. The power this mix interface offers is impressive: you can have radically different processing going on for each drum, yet because Superior Drummer sums everything to a stereo output, project integration is a matter of setting up a single stereo channel.

Comes With Custom MIDI Grooves

For instant use in projects and as a demonstration of the plug-in's power, Superior Drummer 2.0 ships with custom MIDI grooves played by library producer and ace session drummer Nir Z.

One plug-in nets you all the drum kits, microphones, mixing tracks, live rooms, and even session player you'll need to complete professionally produced modern music. Don't let your lack of space keep you from having real drums in your projects -- no matter the genre, Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 can help you realize the music in your head.

Product Description

Finally, Superior Drummer 2.0, "The New York Studio Legacy Series", Toontrack Music's next professional sample engine for drums is due for release. Superior Drummer 2.0 is a complete overhaul of the original dfh Superior engine but Toontrack has made painstakingly sure to lose nothing of the sound quality, attention to detail and musicality that has made the Toontrack Music drum sampler line what it is.

Superior Drummer 2.0 has been re-developed for optimized use with e-drums with more effective use of sample layers and much improved loading times. It will include custom MIDI played by Nir Z accessed through the customized MIDI engine and arranger EZplayer pro, it will feature stand alone capacity through Toontrack solo. From premium UK based software developer Sonalksis Superior Drummer 2.0 has been fitted with, 5-band EQ, high and low pass filter, compressor, gate and transient designer filters.

The interface is reminiscent of EZdrummer with its simple handling and lay out but gives its user layer upon layer of in depth features to create the ultimate drum track.

Abilities:

- ADSR
- X-pads - Load instruments from any Toontrack library to add positions or to double instruments on the position of your choice.
- The ability to read and combine all dfh Superior and EZdrummer sound libraries.

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"Deep product, a bit of a learning curve but well worth it."

Sound:
The sound quality is awesome. It is a bit tricky to work through all of the features and getting it set up at first in Pro Tools. Once you figure out how to route things it is very simple to get an easy workflow going. The more RAM the better, I would not try and use this with only the minimum they have listed. I noticed a few entries about constant crashing, not sure what that is about as I have not experienced anything like that. I have seen it freeze when I tried to play a track before the library was fully loaded in RAM, and there is an indicator showing when it is ready to go so no big deal. I have used this for replacing kicks and snares as well as programming tracks from scratch and it really is amazing. Sound quality is top-notch, realism is amazing down to the sound of the bleed between drums if you want it on the track. I use it so much it is on my main template in Pro Tools
Ease of Use:
I just dock it a couple of points for ease of use because it is so deep in features, but you still have to preview MIDI off of a player on a separate track, kind of a step back from EZDrummer as far as that goes.
Value:
Way worth it. My scratch drums are always Superior Drummer tracks and most of the time that is what stays until the end. I get what I need without having to hire a drummer and a decent room to track drums in.
Manufacturer Support:
One emailed question sent and one response received, wish it was instantaneous, but they cleared up my questions pretty easily.

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"Best Value for Your Money"

Sound:
You will be hard pressed to find a better sounding VI plug-in for drums than this one. It works with a variety of styles and the samples are amazing.
Feature:
You can do drum tracks quick and easy or if you choose, you can dig deep into the program and really tweak things until your heart's content. You can mix and match the various kits from the other expansion packs. The possibilities are endless.
Ease of Use:
Once you get the software installed, just add the plug-in to an empty track in your DAW, select a groove from the grooves tab, audition it right there in the plug-in then drag it down to the track in your DAW. An earlier comment mentioned that this software took a step back from EZ Drummer in that you had to have the midi file in a track other than the one that had the plug-in. That was true for the first edition of the software but Toontrack released an update a few months back that fixed that issue. You can now have the midi data reside in the same track as the plug-in.
Quality:
The plug-in looks great but more importantly it sounds great.
Value:
You will not find a better sounding drum library for the current sales price of $149.99. Period. And even at full price, you might find some that sound as good as, but you won't find any that sound better for the price.

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